


The Seven

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Fix-It, Gryffindor! Bill Denbrough, Gryffindor! Eddie Kaspbrak, Gryffindor! Georgie Denbrough, Hufflepuff! Ben Hanscom, Hufflepuff! Mike Hanlon, I’ll add more tags as I go along I guess, Multi, Ravenclaw! Richie Tozier, Ravenclaw! Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Slow Burn, Slytherin! Beverly Marsh, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-03 11:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21178577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Students are dying en masse at Hogwarts and for once administration makes a good choice: they bring in a team of specialists to figure it out.





	1. The Reunion

“Stan the _man!_”

Stanley Uris startled, lowering his newspaper to look for the source of the voice. The train station was roaring, crowds of people swooping through, trains screaming by, loudspeakers blaring. Deep in the crowd, Stan caught a glimpse of a man with dark, unruly hair and glasses waving frantically. Stanley jumped to his feet.

Richie Tozier dodged through the crowd, his bright orange shirt nearly blinding Stanley.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Stanley demanded before Richie nearly bowled him over with a hug.

“I haven’t seen you in _years_, man, and that’s all you have to say to me?” Richie said into Stanley’s shoulder.

Stanley felt his feet lift off the ground. “Rich!”

Richie let go and Stanley hit the ground hard, overbalanced, and fell back onto the bench. “Fuck you.”

“Yeesh, Stan, you look like shit!” Richie said as he adjusted his glasses. He plunked down beside Stanley.

Stanley frowned; he knew he looked grey. Work had taken its toll on him, the long nights and secrets weighing on him, body and soul. Stanley shrugged dismissively and picked up his newspaper from where it had fallen to the ground. _Tragedy at Hogwarts_, the headline blared. “You know how it is,” he muttered.

“Can’t say I do,” Richie said with a good-natured smile. “Isn’t that the whole point of working in the Department of Mysteries, Mr. Unspeakable?”

Stanley pointed at the newspaper headline. “Are you on this case, too?” he asked. 

The line between Richie’s eyebrows deepened. “Yeah.”

The pair sat together on the bench, a bubble of silence surrounded by the chaos of the train station. Stanley was troubled by Richie’s quiet. Thinking back, he couldn’t recall a single moment during all their years together at Hogwarts when Richie wasn’t jabbering away about something inane. Stanley felt a pang of guilt and regret at all the growing up his friends must have done while he was holed up, away from life in the Department of Mysteries.

Stanley couldn’t bear the silence any longer. “Aren’t Bill and Beverly on this case, too?”

“No shit?” Richie smiled. “I knew Bill was, but Beverly?” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her in a while, either. You two and your ambitions.”

“It’s not like none of us had ambitions,” Stanley murmured. “We all drifted in some way. That’s just adulthood.” He tugged nervously on his earlobe. “I mean, how often do you see any of the others?”

Richie shook his head again. “How’s Patty?” Richie asked instead of answering.

Richie had been the only one of the Losers to attend Stan’s wedding, though not through any fault of theirs. They had all had cases, busy catching dark wizards, Stanley supposed, doing their work as aurors. He was disappointed, sure, but it had been so long since they had all been together that he hadn’t really expected it to happen anyways.

Stanley looked down at his knees. “We’re alright.” Richie still felt like a best friend to Stan, and it was mortifying that he still had the urge to tell him what was really on his mind. Richie must have moved on by now, surely had his own friends to talk to, but here Stanley was, clinging pathetically to his childhood friend and longing to tell him all the ugly parts of his and Patty’s relationship because he knew Richie would understand. But Stanley said nothing.

Richie bounced his knee up and down. “That’s good, I guess.”

Stanley glanced at Richie, watching him stare at the floor, then sighed and glanced down at his watch. “We should get going,” he said.

Richie waited, a single briefcase dangling from his hand, while Stanley gathered his own things. He handed Richie a suitcase (“What am I, your slave?” “Fuck you, Rich.”), hefted his briefcase in one hand, and tugged his last suitcase behind him.

The two of them slipped through the barrier between platforms nine and ten and emerged into the nearly-silent platform nine and three-quarters. The platform, usually bustling with students and their families, had an eerie, abandoned air. If it weren’t for the five figures and their luggage standing next to the tracks, the platform would be empty.

“Eddie fucking Spaghetti?” Richie screeched. “Haystack? Is that you? You look sexier than I remember! What the hell are you guys doing here?”

Richie dashed forward with the two suitcases hiked up to his ribs, a grown man sprinting away like a child. Stanley found himself laughing out loud as he trailed behind him. The last time he had laughed like that, Stanley realized with a shock, was at his wedding with Richie.

“What the fuck are you wearing?” Stanley heard Eddie saying as he reached the group. 

“Muggle clothes,” Richie replied, then yanked Eddie into a hug that lifted him off his feet.

Behind the pair stood Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Mike Hanlon, and Beverly Marsh. Stanley smiled and reached out for a handshake, but before a greeting could leave his lips, Bill had him in a bear hug. Stanley felt the others surrounding them. Mike’s arm around his shoulders, Beverly’s hair against his cheek, and soon they were all in a tight knot of a group hug, just like they had always done when they were kids.

Mike’s muffled voice emerged from within the bundle: “I missed you guys.”


	2. The Hogwarts Express

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically a catch you up to speed chapter lol

The Losers crammed themselves into their old compartment on the Hogwarts Express. The compartment had always been a little too small, only meant to seat six, and now that they were adults, it was nearly impossible to fit. Even when Stanley vocalized his trepidation, no one suggested splitting the group; it just wouldn’t feel right.

Bill squeezed himself between Mike and Ben on one side of the compartment with Eddie, Richie, Beverly, and Stan on the other. After a lot of pushing and bickering from Eddie and Richie, they finally situated themselves with Eddie pressed against the window, Stan in the middle, and Beverly against the inner wall with Richie on her lap, legs stretched across Stan and Eddie’s. Richie and Beverly kept whispering to each other and giggling while Stan pinched Richie’s legs to get him to sit still. Bill smiled. He hadn’t thought about the Losers in so long, but now that they were all together, it was like they had never left, everyone slotting neatly back into the familiar patterns.

Small talk flew about the room as the train rumbled along, but it didn’t feel like small talk; they were reacquainting themselves with each other, filling in the gaps of their group history.

Bill, Richie, Ben, Eddie, and Mike were all investigative aurors, but it was rare that they saw each other, different as their individual disciplines were. On occasion they were assigned to the same case, but it was never with more than one of the others at a time.

“Of course you’re a medical examiner,” Richie was saying, nudging Eddie with his toe. Eddie slapped at his foot. “Why the auror part, though?”

“I don’t want to spend my life in a hospital,” Eddie said. “I did too much of that as a kid.”

“Cheers to that,” Richie said

“It makes sense that you’re a criminal profiler,” Eddie snapped. “You’ve already got the mind of a criminal.”

“Hey, it’s my job, what can I say?”

Eddie scoffed.

“You study magical creatures, don’t you, Mike?” Beverly asked.

Mike smiled. “Never did grow out of that fascination,” he chuckled.

“Our little farm boy,” Richie quipped. 

“And you, Ben?” Beverly asked. “Magical architecture?”

Ben nodded.

“Bev, what do you do?” Stan asked.

“She’s a hit wizard,” Ben said proudly.

“A hit wizard?” Stan asked, a quiet note of awe in his voice.

“Hit _witch_,” Beverly corrected.

“That’s our girl!” Richie exclaimed. “Fighting the bad guys!” He pinched Beverly’s cheek and Beverly shoved him, almost toppling him out of her lap.

“It does make sense,” Mike said. “You always were the best at hexes.”

“And,” Richie cut in. “We’ve got Mr. Unspeakable over here.” He hitched a thumb at Stanley, who nodded sheepishly.

Bill turned to look at Stanley. “An Unspeakable?” That was an extremely difficult job to get, and an even harder one to do. Bill felt worry for Stan gnawing in the pit of his stomach and saw his sentiments reflected in the eyes of the others.

“I don’t suppose you can tell us which department you’re in?” Mike asked.

Stan shook his head. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, though,” he grumbled.

“Aurors are nosy bastards,” Beverly offered.

“Hey!” Richie and Eddie exclaimed.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Bill said. “That we all ended up working for the Ministry of Magic? And in similar practices, too.”

“We had similar interests,” Ben suggested feebly.

“Hardly,” Eddie scoffed. “It’s not like we all loved Defense Against the Dark Arts, did we? It just so happened that every one of our interests led us to a different area of the Ministry.”

“And now we’re all assigned to the same case,” Beverly said.

A hush fell across the apartment. Bill supposed he should have been suspicious that they all ended up together again, but really, it just felt inevitable, like it was meant to be the seven of them here again. Besides, Bill was too happy to dwell on the complexities of the situation.

“I don’t suppose you can enlighten us to the details of this case, Big Bill?” Richie said into the silence. “You are the leader of this outfit.”

Bill sighed and ran a rough hand through his hair. “I’ve got the same information as you, so far. I’m sure we’ll be briefed when we get there, but for now all I know is what’s in the paper.”

“Three students, mutilated. Two still missing,” Stanley recited.

“Yeesh, Uris,” Richie groaned. “Could you make it any blunter?”

“Certainly,” Stanley quipped. “But not for you.”

Richie barked out a laugh, sharp in the muted air. “Stan the Man gets off a good one!” he crowed. “Good old Stan. I’ve missed you, buddy.”

“I’ve missed all of you,” Stanley said, quiet. “My job…”

“We’re all busy, Stan,” Mike reassured him. “I haven’t seen these guys outside of work in years.”

Bill sighed. “It’s still been far too long.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All i have to say is..... choo choo eddie


	3. The Dream

“I’m having flashbacks,” Eddie muttered as they strode through the halls. The light from the torches cast their lights across the stone walls, stretched and dark, following the deputy headmistress, Professor Munroe, to the headmistress’s office. It must have been past curfew, for the halls were empty and the paintings were asleep.

Richie giggled next to Eddie. “Remember when you tripped over nothing in the hallway? And that suit of armor laughed so hard its visor fell off?”

“Fuck off,” Eddie hissed.

Beverly kicked Eddie in the back of the heel and nodded towards Professor Munroe, who had stopped in front of the gargoyles guarding the headmistress’s office.

“Popcorn,” Professor Munroe said, and the gargoyles sprang apart.

The group traipsed up the stairs and into the headmistress’s office. The walls were adorned with the usual portraits of past headmasters and headmistresses, and the room was filled with a rustic decor. There was a faint musty odor masked by a sweet perfume, and Eddie sneezed as the heavy scent hit his nose. Eddie wrinkled his nose; the room looked like dust held together by magic, so antique was the theme of the room. An older woman was seated behind the faded desk, and she stood as the group entered the room.

“I’m so grateful for your presence,” she said, then held out a hand. “I’m Professor Weiss.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Bill said as he shook her hand, and the professor withdrew, taking Bill’s greeting as representative of the group’s.

Professor Weiss summoned seven dusty and well-worn wooden chairs facing the desk. “Please sit,” she implored. “We have much to discuss.”

Eddie tried to swipe the dust off the seat surreptitiously before he sat between Bill and Richie, swallowing the nerves rising in his throat. This didn’t feel like any of the other cases Eddie had worked on; maybe it was just because he had practically grown up here at Hogwarts, but it felt like there was more at stake. The scraping of chairlegs filled the room and Professor Weiss watched them situate themselves with piercing blue eyes.

“You already know the death toll, I’m sure,” she said. “Barbara Kelly, year one; Jackson Gerhard, year three; and May Abbot, year four. Jessie Cheung and Michael Foster, both year two, are still missing. Kelly and Abbot were in the first floor girl’s bathroom and Gerhard was in the boy’s Hufflepuff bathroom.” Weiss leaned back in her chair. “Of course, I will be happy to show you the bathrooms tomorrow.”

“Do we have access to the autopsies yet?” Eddie asked. Bill looked up from where he had been scribbling furiously in his notebook.

“They should be here tomorrow,” the professor said.

Eddie nodded.

Richie leaned forward. “Professor, do you have any suspicions about this case? Any details that struck you as odd?”

“Besides the mutilated children?” the professor deadpanned. 

Richie didn’t give her an inch, and Eddie mentally applauded him. “Besides that,” he replied.

The professor was quiet for a moment, eyes locked with Richie, calculating her response. “I don’t know if I can tell you this, but there was a similar case, before my time as headmistress, a few decades ago,” she said. “Children dying and disappearing, turning up with missing limbs and terrible wounds. That was when you were in school, wasn’t it?”

Eddie sat back. He couldn’t remember anything of the sort, wasn’t sure how he could forget something like that, but the thought itched in the back of his mind. He watched as one of the portraits behind the professor whispered to his neighbor.

“I don’t think it was,” Richie said, a frown etched into the lines on his face. That was something Eddie was struggling to get used to: the lines on his friends’ faces, the grey hairs. 

“Well,” Professor Weiss said. “A similar case. Went unsolved. Perhaps you should look into it.

“Perhaps we will,” Bill murmured. He looked just as lost as Richie.

After a few scattered questions from which they gained little information, Professor Weiss directed Professor Munroe to take them back to their rooms. Without seeing the crime scene, there wasn’t much they could do.

They wound their way through corridors and down dark hallways until they stopped at a suit of armor down the hall from the charms classroom. “These are the guest suites,” Professor Munroe explained. “We don’t use them often, but we asked the house elves to prepare them for you.”

She reached out and shook the suit of armor’s hand. The wall next to the suit swung open as though it were on hinges, revealing a warmly lit common room lined with doors.

Eddie’s room was second on the left, his luggage already waiting inside. The room was a pale gold with a crisp white bed already turned down for him. Eddie could feel the tension of the day creeping into his neck. The euphoria of reuniting with the Losers was weighted heavily by the reason they were all together. Eddie was familiar with death—he had to be as a medical examiner— but children? Eddie shivered, then shook his head and got in the shower.

As he prepared himself for bed Eddie heard hushed voices in the common room, but was too tired to stay up and talk to anyone. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Eddie’s dream that night had an unfamiliar quality to it; the edges were sharp and painful, unlike the usual haziness sleep brought. Eddie was fifteen again, dragging his toiletry caddy to the bathroom that morning. He had woken up early, planning on finishing his History of Magic essay before breakfast. He yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth when no one else was awake to see.

The Gryffindor common room was silent and still, and Eddie reveled in being the only one awake to see this phenomenon. There was never peace here, the room always filled with yells and dares, brash words and defiant glares. Eddie enjoyed the banter, but it was still nice to see the room in an entirely different context. Even the fireplace was quiet, too warm a day for a fire.

As Eddie nudged open the door to the communal bathroom, he was hit by a stench unlike any he had smelled before. It was foul, damp and cloying in his nose, like molded plants and rusty pipes.

He looked around the bathroom and saw one shower stall with its door closed, but no water running, no sound at all.

“Hello?” Eddie called. His voice bounced against the tiles. “Is someone there?”

Straining his ears, Eddie thought he could make out a faint dripping sound. He fumbled through his caddy for his aspirator and took a big huff of it, settling his breathing but not his nerves.

Heart pounding in his throat, he walked towards the shower stall. “Hello?” he called again, not really expecting an answer.

The smell was clearly coming from the stall and it was almost unbearable now, working its way deep into Eddie’s sinuses and lodging against the back of his throat in a thick film. Eddie wheezed.

The door was right in front of him now. Eddie couldn’t hear the dripping anymore, not over the sound of his own labored breathing, but he knew it was still there and he was glad he couldn’t hear it. The sound should have been easily explained away, what with him being in a very old bathroom with faulty plumbing, but something in Eddie knew that the dripping was more significant than that. 

With one hand clenched around his aspirator, he squeezed his eyes shut and shoved open the door.

Eddie’s eyes shot open and he scrambled out of his sweaty bed sheets, gagging on his own breath as he dashed to the bathroom. He retched over the toilet bowl, but nothing came up. He took a deep breath off his aspirator and rested his forehead against the cool ceramic of the toilet, forgetting for the moment about the germs that surely plagued it. He struggled to recall what was behind that shower stall in his dream, but he couldn’t; all he could remember was the horror of what he had seen.

“It was just a dream,” Eddie muttered to himself, but the words rang false and dissonant in his ears.


	4. The Scene of the Crime

Ben shrugged a robe on over his button down and slacks as he walked out into the common room. Sleeping in hadn’t been much of an option for him today; he woke too early and couldn’t fall back asleep, consumed with anticipation for the investigation they would carry out later.

The common room was lit dimly only by the fire in the fireplace, but Ben could see breakfast was already set out for them at a round table in the center. To his surprise, Eddie was already hunched over the table, blearily nursing a coffee.

Ben sat in the chair next to him. “You’re up early,” he observed as he helped himself to a plate of toast and strawberries.

“Didn’t sleep well,” Eddie grunted.

“Amen,” Ben agreed.

The rest of the Losers joined them one by one as the dawn turned slowly into day. The meal was reminiscent of their time at Hogwarts, when they would all gather at one end of the Hufflepuff table for breakfast, jostling and joking with each other amidst the glares shot their way from the other houses’ tables. Today, the conversation was subdued by the impending investigation, but the familiarity of his friends gathered around a table together left Ben reeling with nostalgia.

Stan sat across from Ben at the table, quietly reading a book as he ate. Beverly was engaged in a quiet, but heated argument with Richie, both of them smiling as they swapped jibes. Eddie and Bill bent their heads together over a newspaper laid between them, quietly reading the front page.

Mike nudged Ben with his elbow. “You look happy,” he said quietly.

Ben swallowed around an unexpected lump in his throat. “It’s good to be back.”

Mike nodded, the smile lines around his eyes deepening as they watched their friends, soaking in the comfort of their presence before they began the day’s investigation.

——

The Hufflepuff common room was just as Ben remembered it; friendly and inviting, all round edges and warm colors. When he was younger, he could sit for hours on one of the window seats, studying the quietly calculated wood work and admiring the expert use of shapes in the room. Mike grabbed Ben’s shoulder, pointing out familiar landmarks and reminiscing about shared memories from their Hogwarts days.

“Too bad no one beefed it in the Slytherin bathroom,” Richie muttered, too low for Professor Munroe to hear as she led them to the Hufflepuff bathroom. “I always wondered how they managed to make a dungeon livable.”

“Beep fucking beep, Richie,” Beverly said. “That’s horrible.”

“What, is curiosity a sin now?” Richie asked. “Why don’t you enlighten us to the homey qualities of the Slytherin dungeon then?”

From across the room, Eddie groaned and reached up to massage his temples.

“Time and place, Richie,” Bill said.

“We’ve already removed the body and all signs of an attack, as the students still need the bathroom,” Professor Munroe was explaining. “Still, we hope this can help out your investigation.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “How are we supposed to investigate a crime scene that isn’t there?”

“Hogwarts is in dire need of reform,” Stan said gravely.

As Professor Munroe showed them the shower stall where Gerhard had been found. Ben split off to examine the perimeter of the bathroom. The room was almost exactly the same as when Ben had been a kid; there were a few new stains and scrapes here and there, but the bathroom remained remarkably unupdated. Ben already believed the plumbing to be somehow involved in the case, what with every body being found in a bathroom, but he wanted to make sure all his bases were covered first.

The small round windows were unbroken and there was only the one entrance through which they had come. Ben remembered from _Hogwarts: A History_ that each window was enchanted to it could not break, not even by magical means. Still, he felt carefully around each seam, just to be certain.

As he worked his way around each window, Ben glanced through them and to the lawn outside. They were on the first floor of the castle, and he could see a class, Care of Magical Creatures, most likely. As he watched the group, for just a moment he thought he saw a red balloon floating in their midst. Ben blinked, and it was gone. He shook his head and turned back to examining the infrastructure.

The ridiculous amount of security installed throughout the entirety of the Hogwarts campus left Ben inclined to believe that whatever was killing the children came from inside the castle, but he was clueless as to what. Past headmasters and headmistresses had been known to keep dangerous things inside the castle, but they were always squirreled away deep in the recesses of the castle, rarely surfacing unless someone actively pursued them. And, the layout of the castle was so large, so mysterious, that it was ludicrous to attempt to search its entirety and draw a conclusion. Hidden doors and secret passages prevailed to the extent that no one could claim to know Hogwarts’ entire layout. 

Ben rejoined the group. Bill and Mike were inspecting the stall as Richie interrogated the professor about young Gerhard. Stan stood off to the side, arms crossed and lost in thought as he gazed about the room. Eddie crouched on his heels against the wall, staring blankly at the floor in front of him. Ben watched as Beverly knelt next to him, murmuring a soft inquiry.

“Can you find out who his closest friends were?” Richie was asking Professor Munroe. “I’ll need to talk to them each in private, just to get a feel of the situation.”

“We’d really prefer not to involve the students—”

“Look.” Richie held up a hand. “I understand your reluctance to involve them, but kids are dying here. If we don’t do everything we can, even more could die.”

“Professor Weiss was clear that the students are to be left alone,” Professor Munroe said with a shake of her head.

“I’m just trying to do my job here,” Richie said. “I would like your cooperation—”

“I wish I could help, but I’m afraid I can’t in this situation,” Professor Munroe said, jaw stubbornly set. “I’m sorry.”

Richie grumbled to himself as he turned away, scribbling darkly in his notepad. The professor watched him stalk off towards Eddie and Beverly, a mixture of helplessness and indignation on her face.

Ben sidled up beside her. “I don’t suppose you know much about the plumbing system here, do you?” he asked.

Professor Munroe blinked at him. “No,” she said, clearly too surprised to elaborate.

Ben sighed and made a mental note to do some research in the library later. “Thanks.”

Bill straightened up in the shower stall. “Shall we move on to the next scene?” he proposed.


	5. Obstruction of Justice

Richie strode through the hallways, robe billowing behind him as children dove to the walls to avoid him. Richie hadn’t meant to be in the halls during passing period, but perhaps this would help his case. The kids now had confirmation that something was going on if Richie was walking around in broad daylight.

No one had been able to glean much from the empty bathrooms besides Ben, and that was because his evidence couldn’t be squirreled away from him; you can’t vanish a building.

Back in the common room, the Losers had compared notes over lunch. 

“It’s ridiculous,” Bill had said. “What were they expecting us to investigate there? A clean bathroom? If they had just called us in when the first murder happened, we’d have way more information right now.”

“Hogwarts isn’t known for its practical, ethical, or reasonable procedures,” Stan said bitterly.

Eddie snorted. His autopsy reports still hadn’t come in, and he’d been in a funk since that morning. Beverly hadn’t managed to get anything out of him, she’d confided in Richie earlier. She worried something was bothering him, but she wasn’t sure what. Richie worried, too.

In the common room, Eddie had slumped against the back of his chair at the table, arms folded and dark eyes focused on the wall above Richie’s head. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced than usual.

“They’ve let the caretaker clean up a crime scene, then sent us a list of what was there?” Bill ranted. “There aren’t even any pictures.”

“To be fair,” Stanley pointed out. “It doesn’t usually occur to a wizard to take pictures of anything.”

Bill buried his head in his hands.

Richie rounded the corner in the hallway and pressed his lips together in a grim line when he saw the gargoyle statues guarding the door. He stood before them, racking his brains for the password he had already forgotten from last night.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

A dark-haired, teenaged boy stared at him with wide eyes.

“You know the password to this thing?” Richie called.

The boy continued to stare, and Richie did a double take. The boy’s eyes were yellow. “Yeah, I know it,” he said.

“Uh… Mind telling me what it is?”

“Sure!” As Richie watched, hair began to sprout along the boy’s face, his arms. On his shirt, where the school uniform normally required a tie, there was a big, orange pom-pom. The boy smiled, revealing pointed teeth, and said, “The password’s ‘faggot!’”

Richie’s breath caught in his throat. “What?” he croaked.

“‘Faggot!’” the boy repeated cheerfully. “As in, ‘Richie Tozier’s a motherfucking faggot!’”

Richie quickly looked up and down the halls, to see if anyone else was seeing this. Most of the kids were already in their next classes, only a few stragglers left behind. A girl in Ravenclaw robes looked at him curiously. 

Richie turned back to the boy, but it was no longer a boy, his face a long, snarling snout with dripping yellow teeth. It barked out a wolffish laugh then turned and ran away.

“Motherfucker,” Richie whispered, watching him speed down the hall. Richie hadn’t told anyone he was bisexual. In school, he had been to repressed to even acknowledge it, and once he had, there was no one he wanted to tell; the Losers had already drifted apart, and his parents… Richie was still trying to work up the courage to tell them.

“Excuse me.”

Richie jumped and whirled to the right. The Ravenclaw girl stood there, watching him warily. “What?” Richie snapped.

“Are you one of the investigators?” the girl asked. 

“Yeah. Who are you?” Richie glanced over his shoulder, down the hall, making sure the boy-wolf hadn’t come back.

The girl smiled, a hard glint in her eye. “I’m Rachel Foster.”

Richie turned back to the girl. “Your brother—”

Rachel Foster spun sharply on her heel and strode down the empty hall. “The password is ‘popcorn,’” she called just before she disappeared around the corner. 

Richie stared after her for a moment, then shook his head and let himself into the headmistress’s office.

Professor Weiss glanced up at him as he entered, but otherwise looked completely unsurprised. “Mr. Tozier,” she said as she stood up to greet him.

Richie waved a hand at her to sit back down. She summoned a chair for him and remained standing until he sat.

“To what do I owe this visit?” she asked. “Hasn’t Professor Munroe been assisting your investigation?”

“Professor Munroe seems to be obstructing justice under your instructions,” Richie said, cutting right to the point.

“I’m sorry?”

“I need to talk to your students,” Richie continued. “I am investigating a murder and I am obligated by duty and morality to perform this job to the best of my ability. If you do not let me do so, I will be forced to get an official warrant, and then your jurisdiction will mean nothing in this investigation.”

Professor Weiss leaned forward, her spidery hands folded on top of the desk. She studied Richie, who did his best not to quail under her scrutiny. Finally, she sat back. “Have you interviewed any of my teachers yet?” she asked.

“No, but—”

“I suggest you start there,” Professor Weiss interrupted. “If you are still unsatisfied, perhaps we can discuss this at another time.”

“Professor—”

“Listen to me, Mr. Tozier,” Professor Weiss hissed. “My priority is caring for my children. I will not let you hound them with your questions. They are already having a hard enough time dealing with these tragedies without an investigator on their backs constantly.”

Richie pushed his chair back and stood up. “Professor, no matter how much you want to protect these children, you are still obstructing the investigative process. If you want to keep this school safe, I suggest you change your mindset.” Richie stormed out the door and down the stairs, through the hallways and back into the common room before he had even realized it. He shivered as he put his hand on the door knob. He had felt as though someone had been watching him all the way back.


	6. The Library

Mike perused the library bookshelves, looking for a documentation of Hogwarts’s history that wasn’t _Hogwarts: A History_. Mike hoped that a less-popular and slightly outdated account of the school’s history would hold more details that were relevant to their case.

Mike’s gaze landed on a burgundy, faded book labeled _Hogwarts Through the Ages_. Mike reached up and pulled it out, releasing a cloud of thick dust as he did. Mike coughed and waved his hand in front of his face.

The dust cleared, and Mike was able to see what had been hidden behind the book. A large egg, surprisingly clear of any dust, sat on the shelf, somehow balanced upright. The hairs on the back of Mike’s neck stood on end. Mike reached forward to pick the egg up, examine it so he might determine what had laid it, but when his fingers grazed the surface, the egg shattered, shards flying outwards and slicing Mike’s fingers. Mike gasped and jerked his hand back as a deep, damp smell pervaded the air. Mike’s fingers were bleeding. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his hand, then looked back at where the egg had been. There was a black and white photograph lying on the shelf. Mike saw his uninsured hand reach forward, out of his control, and pluck the photo from the shards. Hand trembling, he brought it up to his face so he could clearly look at it.

He felt relief wash over him as he recognized the picture. It was one he kept at his apartment, framed on his desk, a picture of the Losers on one of their last outings. Bev had just gotten a camera for Christmas during their last year at Hogwarts. They had been taking dumb pictures of eachother all day, but wanted one of everyone together, so they asked a passing witch to take their picture in front of the Shrieking Shack.

They hadn’t treated the picture, so it didn’t have the same movement of the ones in the wizarding world. Richie had scoffed but Bill was fascinated when Beverly and Mike had tried to explain the photo’s stillness, the two muggle-bores attempting to educate the pure bloods.

In the picture, Bill had his hand wrapped around Beverly’s wrist, attempting to stop her from making a bunny-ears sign behind his head, Ben laughing as he watched the pair tousle. Richie had one arm around Stan’s neck, the other around Eddie’s. Eddie was scowling and attempting to get away, foot caught in the middle of a blurry trajectory towards Richie’s shin, but Stan had a quiet, pleased smile on his face.

In the photograph Mike kept on his desk, Mike stood behind Richie, hand caught in Richie’s hair mid-ruffle as he laughed, but in this photo, Mike wasn’t there. In his place there was a clown staring directly at the camera. As Mike stared in horror, the clown in the photo winked, and in one rapid movement put his hand on Richie’s head in an imitation of Mike’s position and jerked it to the right.

The sound of Richie’s neck snapping echoed against the bookshelves and Mike jumped backwards, dropping the photo and slamming into the bookshelf behind him so it was sent wobbling. Mike hastily grabbed the shelf to steady it and glanced nervously around the room. Madam Pince was glaring at him from her desk, but she soon went back to her work.

Mike turned back to where he had dropped the photo on the ground, but there was nothing there but the lingering smell.

Mike quickly made his way out of the shelves and sat down hard at the table, breathing harshly. Bill glanced up, mouthed, “You okay?” at him. Mike nodded, waving him off. Bill’s gaze lingered, but he was drawn back into his own book.

Ben and Stan were there, too, Ben bent over an ancient book of blueprints, cross-referencing it with his copy of _Hogwarts: A History_. Bill and Stan were examining a death record together, foreheads nearly touching as they poured silently over the pages. Mike opened up Hogwarts Through the Ages, surprised he had managed to hold onto it, and began to read, attempting to shake the egg from his mind.

As he flipped through the pages, he found the book was mostly about Hogwarts’ old glories: the founding, the quidditch, the advancements, the Triwizard Tournaments. But, every once in a while, there was an off-hand mention of the death of a student.

Mike dug his hand into the pocket of his robes, withdrawing a notebook. “Can I borrow a pen?” he whispered to the others after a moment of fruitless rummaging.

“I have a quill,” Bill offered.

“Really?” Mike teased. “You still use those? They’re so messy.”

Bill stuck his tongue out and Mike had to stifle a laugh of surprise as Ben handed handed him a pen. Mike watched as Bill went back to his research, a tinge of amusement still lingering around his lips.

Mike carefully sifted through the pages of _Hogwarts Through the Ages_, taking note of every unattributed death that happened throughout the entire history of the school, not yet sure of what he was looking for.

Many of the deaths in the book were unnamed, almost aloof mentions, often only a single phrase. In the case of the Triwizard Tournament or quidditch deaths, there was sometimes a paragraph or two summarizing the tragedy, but these deaths had nearly nothing. As Mike kept careful track of each incident, a pattern started to emerge. About every thirty years, a couple students would die without explanation.

At last, Mike closed the book. The text ended in 1979, so it was missing the most recent batch of deaths if Mike was right in his suspicion of a thirty-year pattern. He went back down his list, grouping the names by year of death. He realized the pattern was closer to every twenty-seven years.

Mike sat back in his chair, rubbing his weary eyes. Ben still had his blueprints and book out, but Stan and Bill had moved on to new ones. Mike gestured to the closed death record book. “Anything good in there?”

“We found the deaths that Professor Weiss mentioned,” Bill said. “The ones that happened when we were kids. But there’re no causes listed, so it isn’t that useful.”

“Let me see.”

Bill shrugged and slid the book across the table to Mike, who pawed through it excitedly; the record proved his theory right. Around every twenty-seven years or so, at least six children died at Hogwarts.

“Guys,” Mike whispered. “Check this out.”

“It’s been almost twenty-seven years since the last group of deaths,” Bill whispered. “It lines up.”

Ben pressed his lips together in a grim line. “Why hasn’t anyone figured this out before us if it’s been going on so long?”

Bill frowned, lines deep around his mouth. “We don’t know if the same thing caused all these deaths. It seems likely,” he said, “but we can’t be sure yet.”

“It’s likely that the deaths were attributed to different causes,” Stanley said. “Or at least the public was made to believe they were unrelated. It’s a common tactic.”

Mike glanced at Stanley, wondering not for the first time what subsection of the Department of Mysteries he worked in. Every now and then Stanley would drop a little tidbit casually into conversation, each one more worrying than the last.

“Do we have access to any files on these kids who’ve died?” Mike asked.

Bill sat back down in his chair across the table, thinking. “It all depends on the cause of death and whether or not there was a serious investigation. I’ll have to send an owl.”

“I’ll send an owl to my department, too,” Stanley said. “We have records.”

Mike gathered up the books to return them to the shelves, never one to create extra work for the librarian. As he reshelved _Hogwarts: A History_, though, a spot of color tucked between the pages caught his eye. Mike opened the book and it fell open to a page titled, “The Chamber of Secrets”. 

Crushed between the pages was a single orange pom-pom.


	7. Déjà Vu

Beverly and Eddie were in the common room, sitting together on a couch as Eddie recounted his dream to her. Beverly could tell that Eddie had been off all day; at first she had attributed it to the absence of the autopsy files, but Eddie had been abnormally pale when they were in the bathrooms earlier, investigating the crime scenes.

Beverly had walked over to where Eddie sat against the bathroom well, balancing on his heels. She crouched next to him and poked him in the arm. “What’s up?”

Eddie had always been good at hiding his maladies, despite what the others may have thought. He used his more manageable, more obvious illnesses as a mask for anything bigger that was truly troubling him. Beverly had always been able to see right through it, though, perhaps because she had similar experience from home. In the second year, while the others had teased Eddie for his increased reliance on his asthma medication, Beverly had casually remarked that she had a cousin with anxiety. Though there weren’t many books about it in the Hogwarts library, they had found enough to form their own diagnosis, and that alone helped Eddie greatly in dealing with his stress.

Eddie didn’t bother trying to lie to Beverly. “I had a weird dream,” he admitted, staring at the tiled floor. “I know it’s dumb, but I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Beverly rested her hand on Eddie’s shoulder for a moment, half for balance and half for comfort, then stood up and extended it to Eddie. “Tell me about it later,” she offered, then pulled him to his feet.

Back in the common room, Eddie had just recounted his dream to her. “It didn’t even feel like a dream,” he was saying. “It’s like when you wake up and you aren’t sure whether or not it was real? It feels like that, and the feeling’s not going away.”

Beverly watched as Eddie clenched his fingers together over and over in his lap, quietly considering what he had said. She had a strange sense of deja vu, as if she had heard of this dream before. She told Eddie so, and his hands clenched together tight and stayed that way.

“Do you remember that investigation that went on when we were kids?” Beverly asked after a moment of silence. 

Eddie stared at her blankly. 

“Don’t tell me you forgot!” Beverly exclaimed. “We were little shits back then, sneaking around and trying to figure out what was going on. Don’t you remember?”

Eddie shook his head, slow and uncertain. “I don’t know how I’d forget something like that.”

“You’re joking.” Beverly saw the confusion written across Eddie’s face, but deep in his eyes she thought she saw a glimmer of recognition. “They wouldn’t tell us what was going on, so we tailed the investigators to try and find out. We never did, though, because Ben—”

“Ben got us caught when he knocked over that suit of armor.” Eddie clapped a hand to his mouth. “I don’t know how I knew that. What you’re saying sounds so familiar, but…” Eddie trailed off, deep frown lines between his eyebrows.

Richie crashed through the common room door with a bang.

“Richie!” Beverly exclaimed.

“What the fuck!” Eddie cried.

Richie’s breathing was heavy, his face hot and flushed. He glanced at the pair of them on the couch, then ducked into his room. He re-emerged a moment later, his face dripping. He must have splashed water on it, Beverly thought as he made his way to the couch and dropped down between Beverly and Eddie. They had to scramble out of the way to avoid being crushed.

“You’re getting me wet,” Eddie grumbled. Richie grinned and grabbed Eddie’s shoulder, attempting to dry his face on it while Eddie shoved him away. Beverly laughed and dragged Richie back by the collar.

“Where is everyone?” Richie asked.

“Library,” Beverly replied. “Where were you?”

“I was having a lovely little chat with Professor Weiss,” Richie said. “She’ll only let me interview teachers; no students.”

“What the fuck?” Eddie exclaimed.

“Do they think this is some kind of joke?” Beverly demanded. “How are we supposed to conduct a proper investigation?”

“Right?” Richie said. “I need to know who these kids were, who they liked, who they disliked, if there’s anything linking them. Right now, all I have are their names.”

“What did Weiss say?” Beverly asked.

Richie scoffed. “She said no, of course. So now I’ve got to get an official warrant here.”

“You gonna write an owl?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Wanna come with? See if you’re autopsies are in yet?”

Eddie nodded. Beverly patted him on the shoulder, but he barely noticed. He was back to his dream again, the dripping noise on the tile, the eerie silence, no longer peaceful, the ragged breathing in his chest. Professor Weiss said there had been a series of deaths when they were in school; why couldn’t he remember them? He felt some strange connection to them and he couldn’t figure out why.

“Ready, Spaghetti?” Richie called from behind the couch.

“Fuck you, bro.”

Richie pinched Eddie’s cheek before he could protest. “You know you love it.”

The pair left, leaving Beverly alone in the common room. She sighed to herself, drumming her fingers against her thigh. She felt as though she were in a rut. She had nothing going on for her this investigation; there were no monsters, no dark wizards for her to duel. Not that she wanted there to be any real threat to her friends, but without it she felt useless, waiting for something big to happen.

The door clicked open behind Beverly and she turned to see who it was, eager for a distraction from her boredom.

Beverly frowned. Though it was still afternoon and there was a bright, warm light coating the room, the figure had an odd shadow cast across his face. The only thing she could make out about the figure was that it was male, but there was something about the way he held his body, puffed out in the chest but awkward in the knees that made Beverly’s heart skip a beat. 

She stood up from the couch, hand on the wand holster at her waist. “Who’s there?”

A throaty gurgle, the soft sound of a bubble of saliva popping in the back of the mouth, preceded the low, wet voice of the man. “Don’t you recognize me, Bevvie?” Beverly whipped her wand out and pointed it at the man, tried to ignore the way it shook. “I worry about you, Bevvie.”

Almost before her father had finished speaking Beverly screamed, “Impedimenta!”

Her father flew back from the doorway and Beverly heard him hit the floor with a wet thud, but she couldn’t bring herself to go after him. She was frozen, still holding her wand out as she shook uncontrollably. The only reason she’d managed to cast a spell at their father was due to years of honing action into instinct. She had never, never, done that before, no matter how tempting it had been. Her father was a muggle, but he still held the power of adulthood and authority over her even without the magic Beverly possessed.

Beverly’s arm fell limply to her side as she realized what she had just done. Without thinking, she dashed out the door and into the hall, intending to run to her father’s side and head him off before he got too angry, but when she cleared the doorway there was nothing but a pool of dirty water on the stone floor.

Beverly whipped her head up and down the hallways, but there was no one there and no evidence that anyone had been in the last few minutes. Shaking harder than before, she backed through the doorway, past the dining hall, and into her room. She locked the door behind her. She felt the compulsive need to wash her hands, to scrub away her actions, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to enter the bathroom. Instead, she crawled onto her bed and burrowed into the blankets as she finally began to sob.


	8. The Body

Ben walked quickly on his way back to the common room. Bill and Stan had gone off to the owlery to deliver their letters, Mike tagging along as company. Ben wanted to check in on the others. He had a copy of Hogwarts’ plumbing blueprints under one arm as he sped down the hallway.

He was certain that the deaths were somehow connected to the plumbing; what else could it be? All the deaths in the bathrooms, and if Ben had to make a guess, he’d bet that the missing bodies, if they ever turned up, would be found in the bathrooms.

The halls were empty as he walked, the students currently in classes, no one around to witness as Ben suddenly stopped in the middle of the hallway.

There had been a noise on his left, a faint cry of terror. Ben slowly turned. The girls bathroom. Another strangled cry burbled out of the doorway.

Ben glanced furtively up and down the hallway, saw no one, and stepped into the bathroom.

The bathroom gleamed, cold and quiet, save for a soft dripping noise. “Hello?” Ben called softly. His voice echoed off the tiles. He took another step forward, encouraged by the lack of response. At least there wouldn’t be some little girl just trying to use the restroom while he was here.

He took another step forward and it was as if he had walked into a cloud of stink. He covered his nose with his sleeve. The smell was foul, like that of mold buried deep in metal pipes. This was _not_ what a Hogwarts bathroom should smell like, yet Ben felt some sort of recognition as he grew used to the stench. It was still unpleasant, but Ben had adjusted to it, surrounded as he was.

There was a closed toilet stall on Ben’s left. He frowned. “Is anyone in there?” he called again. No answer. There was only a faint dripping noise.

He drew closer and the dripping noise grew louder. “Hello?” He pressed an ear flat against the door. He heard nothing but the dripping.

Then he heard the muffled scream again. Ben whipped around, his back to the closed stall, and found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror. As he stared at himself, he saw a red balloon pop out the top of the stall at his back.

Ben’s heart leapt to his throat and he spun back to face the stall, flinging himself away as he did, acting on pure instinct. He didn’t know why that balloon terrified him so, but he knew he had to get away from it. His back hit the sink and the stall door swung open with a bang.

“Shit!” Ben yelled.

There was a girl sitting in the stall, on the toilet, but she was dead. Her head was thrown limply back against the wall, her mouth gaping in a silent scream. Her neck was an open wound, as if something had bit a chunk of it away. Blood coated her entire front, stale and crusty, and Ben blankly wondered how long she had been there.

Ben stared in horror, hands gripping the cold sink against his back. His mouth opened and shut soundlessly. He felt as though he would never move again, didn’t want to ever move again. He might have stood there forever if the sound of doors slamming and footsteps rumbling through the halls didn’t shake him from his stupor.

He released the sink took a few trembling steps forward. Once he was certain he wouldn’t black out, he reached out, shutting the stall door while staying as far away from it as he could manage. He couldn’t let any of the students see this.

He stumbled out the door and drew his wand, muttering “_Colloportus_” as he closed it. He summoned a sign that read “closed for maintenance”, then turned and hurried through the sea of children to the common room.

The common room was empty when Ben arrived. “Hello?” he yelled.

“I’m here,” Beverly called. She opened the door to her room and stared at Ben. “What’s wrong?”

Ben grabbed her by the wrist, trying to convey the urgency of the situation and also just needing to hold onto someone for a moment. “There’s a body in the fourth floor girl’s bathroom.”

Beverly was already moving as she drew her wand, dragging Ben behind her. She sent a patronus, a fox, to the rest of the Losers, Ben presumed.

They met on the moving staircases. “Did you close it?” Bill demanded as soon as he saw them. Mike, Richie, and Eddie were close behind him, faces tight with concern and a touch of excitement.

Ben nodded.

“Good.” Bill smiled grimly. “This could be our only chance to truly investigate before someone cleans it up.”

“Tell us what happened, Ben,” Beverly demanded. They were still holding hands.

Ben quickly summarized what had happened, careful to keep his voice down. It was dinner time, but there were still a few students dashing around. “And when it opened,” he was saying, “there was a girl inside, but she was bloody, her throat torn—”

“Eddie!” Richie cried. Beverly’s hand tightened on Ben’s wrist, then let go as they turned around.

Eddie was standing stock still in the middle of the empty hallway, pale as paper. Beverly and Richie rushed toward him, Richie demanding Eddie tell them what was wrong, right now.

Eddie stared straight at Ben as they gathered around him. “Don’t fuck with me, Ben,” he said hoarsely. Ben could hear the familiar whistle of breath laced through Eddie’s words. “Beverly, did you tell him?” Eddie demanded. Beverly shook her head. Eddie’s voice rose an octave, the whistling in his throat more pronounced. “I swear to _God_, Ben, if you’re fucking with me I will kill you, right now, you can’t—”

“What are you talking about?” Ben cried, bewildered.

“My dream!” Eddie cried. “My fucking dream, you just described it perfectly, what the fuck is going _on_?” Eddie was wheezing now.

Richie plunged his hand into Eddie’s pocket, digging out his aspirator and holding it Eddie’s lips. Eddie’s hand curled around Richie’s as he sucked the medicine into his lungs.

“Eddie had a dream,” Beverly explained as this happened, “where he found a body in the bathroom the same way Ben did. He told me about it earlier.”

The group was silent.

“Listen,” Bill said, a hand to his forehead. “Something is going on here, but I can’t deal with this right now. We need to get to the crime scene before someone else does.”

Everyone agreed, and after making sure Eddie had calmed down enough to breathe again, they dashed off to the bathroom.


	9. The Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnign for description of gore

“_Alohomora_,” Bill murmured, then the Losers piled into the bathroom, gathering around the closed stall door. Bill took a deep breath, then slowly reached forward and swung the door open.

The girl was exactly as Ben described her, but the horror at seeing a mutilated child’s body was electric in the air. Richie pushed away from the group to retch into a sink.

“Did you do anything besides close the door when you found her, Ben?” Bill asked. 

Ben shook his head. 

“Okay, let’s take a step back and go through the procedure,” Bill said. “Bev, do you have your camera?”

Beverly _accio-ed_ her camera and scales and they stood back while she photographed the scene. Mike pulled out his notebook and began sketching.

“Mike,” Bill called. “Can you take notes, please?”

Bill narrated his examination of the scene to Mike, careful not to disturb any aspect of it. The only thing that struck Bill about the scene was the girl’s face. Her eyes and mouth were wide open, frozen in what Bill assumed to be a scream of terror. Other than that, it looked as though the girl had simply sat down on the toilet and been bitten and killed instantly. Bill stepped back and waved Eddie forward.

Bill went over to Richie, who stood off to the side with Beverly. “You alright?”

Richie snorted. “No fucking way am I alright.” He was pale under the bathroom lights, his hands trembling slightly. Beverly was under Richie’s arm, wrapped tight around his chest, holding him tight. “I don’t want to see that shit.” Richie gestured weakly at the stall. “I deal strictly with people who are alive. Fuck.” He laughed, the sound clicking in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I should’ve remembered you don’t usually see shit like this. I—”

“Shut up, man,” Richie said. “Go back to your dumb detective shit, I’m fine.”

Bill looked at Beverly, who smiled and said, “I can handle him.”

“I wish you would.” Richie wiggled his eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”

Bill rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I can see you’re perfectly fine.”

“Bill,” Eddie called. “You should see this.” Eddie was pressed up against the stall wall, as close as he could get to the body without touching it. “You know how there’s no blood on the ground?”

“Yeah?”

“Look up.”

Bill did, and his mouth dropped open. All the blood that should have rolled to the floor was on the ceiling, in a dried, gravity-defying puddle. Bill looked back at Eddie, questions written all across his face.

Eddie held his hands up. “I don’t know, man,” he said before Bill could ask. “I’m just showing you.” He looked back at the body. “I’m pretty sure the cause of death was this right here”—he traced a finger across the girl’s belly, pointing out a deep slash so coated in blood that Bill hadn’t noticed it—“and I think this bite on the throat came after she had died. There isn’t as heavy blood flow as you would expect.” Eddie called Mike over. “Can you tell me anything about this bite?”

The bite was deep enough that you could see the girl’s spine. Mike leaned close. “Made with carnivorous teeth,” he murmured. “But there wasn’t interest in consuming the rest of the body.”

Bill frowned. “What could have done that?”

Mike shrugged. “Most creatures don’t play with their food. Or, if they do, they always end up finishing it. Either this creature took a bite and didn’t like it, or they have yet to finish the job.”

Bill shivered. “What do you think?”

“I need to see the autopsies of the other victims,” Mike said. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”

“God,” Eddie groaned. “I’m beginning to feel like those autopsies will never get here”

Bill watched as Eddie continued his examination, calling out something for Mike to jot down every once in a while.

Stan was leaned back against the sink, studying the scene with revulsion, but Bill could see the curiosity in Stan’s gaze. Bill figured that most of the revulsion could be attributed to the uncleanliness and not the morbid gore. 

Ben was slowly circling the room, taking his own notes of the surrounding scene, marks on the sinks, walls, door. Bill nodded at him and Ben returned the gesture before turning back to his examination.

“Well,” Eddie said. “I think we’ve gotten all we can get visually.” He turned to Bill. “Want one last go at it before we tell the headmistress?”

Bill nodded, but he found nothing on his second examination. He stepped back out of the stall, where everyone was looking at him expectantly. He sent his own patronus, a bald eagle, to fetch Professor Weiss.


End file.
